Community Partners: RefugeeOne

Elias Kasongo: Purchasing & Materials Manager

At Eli’s Cheesecake, we are very proud of our long time partnership with RefugeeOne, the largest full service refugee settlement agency in Illinois. RefugeeOne is a refugee resettlement agency that provides a full range of services to refugees resettled in the Chicago area. Without RefugeeOne, we would would have never met Elias Kasongo, who came to Eli’s Cheesecake in 1994, at the age of 22, after being held for 4 years in a refugee camp in Zambia after leaving his home in the Congo. Over those years, Elias has gone from the dish room to becoming Purchasing & Materials Manager with a degree from Northeastern Illinois University, having a beautiful family and now a home owner. Elias now sits on the Board of Directors for RegueeOne and was a keynote speaker at the 2014 RefugeeOne Gala.